Display board



4Jan. 20, 1931-. J RAFFELSON 1,789,908

DISPLAY BOARD Filed Aug. i0, 192'.'

:if #15 i 2 j INVENTOR n Patented Jan. 20, 1931 JACOB itAFrnLsoN, or ROCHESTER, NEW YORK DISPLAY BOARD Application filed August 10, 1927.- lSerial No. 212,029.

This invention relates to a display board,

y more particularly for displaying shirts in vWindows or on the countersV of stores, and has for its principal object Vto provide a simple and effective i'iiechanisnil for holding a folded shirt in proper positionflatwise upon the board. i Y` Another object of the invention is to provide holding mechanism of such a nature that it will not injure the shirt, thus allowing the Asliirtfto be sold asgreadily after being displayed as before. f

A. further lobject is Vto vprovide a board to which a shirt may be quickly attached or removed and with a minimum of effort.

Still another object is to provide means for holdingthe shoulders of a shirt While the body of the shirt is being stretched over the board and clamped. y

20. Vith these and other 'ends in View, the

invention comprises thestructure and combination of parts which will appear more clearly from the following description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, the novel features being pointed out in the claims following the description.

In the drawings:

liligure 1 is a. rear elevation of a shirt dis-l play board,` showing one possible* embodiment of inyinvention applied thereto; y f Fig. 2 is aside elevation thereof f Fig. 3 is a section taken approximately along the line 3-3 of Fi .1, illustrating the action of the clamping mechanism in holding a shirt on the board, and

vFig. 4 is. al section taken .approXima-tely along the .line 4-4 of Fig. 1, showing the rlaniping niorlian'isiii in open position. 4.

ln the conventional. shirt-display vboards commonly used in stores at the present time, it customary to'attach a shirt tothc'board by means of pins. This method of attachnient injures the shirt, by making pin holes in the fabric thereof. If the. shirt berpulled alittle too hard while beiiigplaced on fthe board, the pins are veryapt to tearit. After being displayed on boards, shirts must nearly always be sold at a reduced price, on account Aof the damage which has been done to them. Thisis especiallytrue of silk shirts, sincethe fabric of which they are made is more apt to tear, and the pin holes are more obJectioiiable. In fact, many stores make a practice of never board'.

placing a silk shirt on av display ide from the important question of injury tothe shirt, the conventional display boards are unsatisfactory from a lstandpoint or time and ski-ll required toV place a shirt upon theboard. Only an eX- pei'ienced personcan so place a shirt on the board that it will havea neat and attractive appearance thereon, and even a person of considerable experienceirequires a comparatively large amount of time the operation.

As distinguished from this known construction, niynovel shirt display board comprises a mechanism the board without injury to the fabric. It

is not necessary to pei'forations in the for holding the shirt upon ymake pin holes or other cloth when shirts are held on the board by means of Amy invention, and

silk shirts may be attached to the out fear of. damag viatin g damage to boardrwithy In addition to this important feature of obl the goods, my invention also is of such a 'naturethat it allowsfa shirt to be placed upon the board bya comparativelyinexperienced person, and furtherinoife, the operation may be performed quickly,

Vthus saving a great amount of time hereto-- fore necessary in dressingw'indows oi .othei wise displaying merchandise. i

This novel shirt display board has a main Y Ybody portion 10 'which may consist of any suitable material, s

uch as wood, metal, cardboard on a stand Vor support of the conventional kind. The p be of any suitable body of this board mayk size or shape, preferably rectangular, such as the display boards now in common use. sarily, the' board is its width.

Ordinarily, but not necesconsiderably longer than` A part of the length hasbeen broken away andomitted in Figures 1 and 2 YOn the back of th so as to condense the drawing.

is boa-rd is mounted a suitfor completing On the back Y able clamping mechanism for iholding the shirt. lt is understood that in using the board, the front portion of the shirt is displayed on the front of the board, and the sides and tail of the shirt are brought around the edge of the board and clamped on the back so that the clamping mechanism is entirely out of sight. Many different forms of clamping mechanism could be used for this purpose. The drawingl illustrates one possible form of clamp which includes a generally rectangular' frame 12. This frame may be formed integrally with the body of the board or it may be made of strips of any suitable material screwed. riveted. glued or otherwise fastened to the surface. of the board.

Suitable mechanism is provided for cooperation with this frame 12, so that the shirt may be held between this mechanism and the frame. One possible form of such cooper4 ating mechanism consists of the bails 13 and 1l. these bails being pivot'ed to the frame 12 near the center of the board at land 1G, as shown in land 4. The bail 18 is arranged to cooperate with the right hand half of the frame 12 (as seen from the back of the board, as in Fig. 1). and the bail 1f-l cooperates similarly withthe left half of the frame. As will be seen from the drawings, the inside dimensions of the bail are slightly larger than the outside dimensions of the frame so that a slight space is provided between the edge of the bail and the edge of the'frame when the two `are brought into cooperative relationship. This space isso designed when constructing -tho mechanism that it will be approiiimatelyY as wide as the thickness of two layers of fabric. Consequently, the sides of the shirt, having been brought around the edges of the display board, may be inserted between the frame and the bails when the hails are in their open position, shown in Fig. 4f, and the hails may then be moved until they are in the plane of the frame, thus clamping the shirt between the frame and the bails. l

For holdlng the tail of the shirt after it has been brought around the bottom of theV display boa rd. separate means are provided. A cross piece 17, of approximately the same height as the members 12. is placed across the frame at a suitable distance above the bottom thereof. A member 18 is pivoted at one end as at 19. to om` of thc bails, and carries at its other end a device for attaching it to the other hail. which device may be in the nature of a thumb screw 20 adaptedto be screwed into a threaded opening in the bail. It will bc understood that the opening' in thebail' and the pivot 19 are so placed that when the bar 18 is connected to the hails. as shown in Fig. 1, it overlies the cross piece 17 above mentioned. This 'cross piece does not appear in Fig. 1 since it is entirely hidden bythe member 18.

When it is desired to open the clamping mechanism to receive a shirt, the thumb screw 20 is unscrewed and the member 18 is dropped down until it hangs vertically from its pivot 19, this position being shown in dotted lines labelled 21 in Fig. 1. Vhen the sides of the shirt have been clamped, the tail of the shirt is then brought up and held over the cross piece 17 lwhile the member 18 is swung up to its horizontal position'and fixed there by means of the thumb screw, thus clamping the tail of the shirt between the cross piece 17 and the member 18. In order to assist in getting the thumb screw Q0 correctly alined with the threaded openinginto which itis to be screwed, a stop member 22 may be formed on the bail, as shown in Fig; 1, so that when' the end of the member 18 is brought into contact with the stop 22, the thumb screw 2O will then be correctly alined with its threaded opening.

The mechanism so far described clamps the sides and tail of the shirt. In order to assist in holding the shirt while it is being clamped upon the board,fit is very desirable to have some mechanism for holding the shoulders thereof. Such mechanism may be of many forms, one possible embodiment thereof con sisting of the spring clips 23 and 241, shown in Figs. 1 and 2. It will be'readily apparent from Fig; 2 that pressure on one end of one of these clips will raise the other end, and when the pressure is released, the spring in the clip vwill force the other end against the board,

thus holding anything which has been placed under the end.

The inode of using this shirt display board will now be described. A foldedshirt is spread smoothly over the face of the board in such a position that the shoulders thereof are slightly above the top edge of the board. These shoulders are then folded over the edge and held by means of the clips 23 and 24. The thumb screw 20 is then unscrewed, allowing the bar 18 to drop down to the position 21, which allows the bails 13and 14 to be opened as shown in Fig. 1. The sides ofthe shirt are then brought around the sides of the board and placed betweenthe bails and the frame members 12. The hails are then closed or brought into the same plane as the frame 12, which results in clamping the shirt fabric firmly between the bails and the frame. This position is illustrated in Fig. 3, in which the position of the layer of fabric 25 is clearly shown. It will be seen that the fabric is clamped between two surfaces which are per-` pendioular to the face of the board, and it is further apparent that there is no tendency whatever for a pull on the fabric to open the clamping mechanism. Onthe contrary, if the fabric 25 is pulled` it will `tend to move theY the clamping mechanism to'stay closed, and

i it is not necessary to provide any catch or other device to hold the bails in proper position.

After the shoulders and sides of the shirt have been clamped in the manner above described, the member 18 meanwhile being in the position 21, the tail of the shirt is then brought up around the bottom of the board y and placed over the cross bar 17, as has been described above. The free end of the member 18 is then brought up until it comes in contactV y to hold the bails 13 and 14; in position so that they will not become displaced accidentally when the board is being handled while placing it in the window or on the counter of the store. It is apparent that the bails cannot move out of the plane of the frame 12 to any appreciable extent as long as the memberlS extends across between the bails, in its Fig. 3 position.

lVhile one embodiment of the invention has been disclosed, it is to be understood that the inventive idea may be carried out in a number of ways. This application is therefore not to be limited to the precise details shown, but is intended to cover all modifications thereof falling Within the spirit of the invention or the scope of the appended claims.

I claim:

1. The combination with a shirt display board, ef a. rectangular frame on one side of said board, a bail pivotally connected to said frame at the top and bottom thereof and adapted to be moved to and from a position in which it is in the plane of said frame and slightly spaced from one side of the frame, a second bail similarly pivoted and having a similar relationship to the other side of the frame.v a cross-piece pivoted at one end to one of the bails, and means for attaching the other end of said cross piece to the other of said bails.

2. A display board for holding a. folded garment stretched over the front thereof comprising clamping mechanisms mounted on the back of the board for engaging the sides ofthe folded garment at points between the side edges of the board, and separate clamping means mounted on the back` of the board for holding the tail portion of the folded garment, the latter being extended around the edges of the boa rd :from front to back to permit engagement by saidclamping means. n

A display board for holding a folded garment stretched over the front thereof com prising a pair of clamping hails pivotally mounted on the back of the board to swing about a longitudinal axis of the board for engagement with the side portions of the folded garment, and fixed clamping walls on the back of the board for cooperation with the clamping bails, the sides of said bails being spaced between the sides of the board and the ends of the bails being spaced between the ends of the board.

4:. A display board for holding a folded garment stretched over the front thereof comprising clamping walls fixed on the back of the board, clamping bails pivotally mountef, on the back of the board and cooperating with said fixed clamping walls, and tailclan'iping means comprising a cross piece pivotally mounted upon on-e of said bails and engageable with the other of said bails, acting to hold the tail portion of the folded garment down between the bails. v

5. A display board for holding a folded garment stretched over the front thereof comprising' mechanism for clamping the sides of the folded garment on the back of the board, said clamping mechanism,including a frame secured to the back of the board and spaced inwardly from its outer edges,

and separate clamping means also mounted on the back of the board for holdiiig the shoulder portions of the garment.

6. A display board for holding a folderr garment stretched overV the front thereof comprising mechanism for clamping the sides of the folded garment on the back of the board` and including a pivoted member adapted to engage the garment at a point between the side edges of the board, separate clamping means mounted on the back ef the board for holding the tail portion of the garment, and separate clamping means also mounted on the back of the boardy for holding the shoulder portions of the garment.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto signed my name.

JACOB RAFFELSON. 

